If you look at Rapleaf’s site, they describe their business in the following manner: “Rapleaf is a San Francisco-based startup with an ambitious vision: we want every person to have a meaningful, personalized experience – whether online or offline. We want you see the right content at the right time, every time. We want you to get better, more personalized service. To achieve this, we help Fortune 2000 companies gain insight into their customers, engage them more meaningfully, and deliver the right message at the right time. We also help consumers understand their online footprint.”

According to an article by Emily Steel from the Wall Street Journal, Rapleaf is building a database with all of our information in it. They do this by tapping into voter-registration files and looking at our social networking, shopping and real estate purchases. According to that same article, “Rapleaf says it never discloses people’s names to clients for online advertising.”

I’ve seen blogs that consider this “scare journalism”. Are these articles meant to scare us or are they something we need to worry about?

Here is what The Wall Street Journal found:

Rapleaf knows your real names and email addresses.

It can build rich profiles by tapping voter-registration files, shopping histories, social-networking activities and more. In effect, it can built the ultimate dossier on you.

Rapleaf sells pretty elaborate data that includes household income, age, political leaning, and even more granular details such as your interest in get-rich-quick schemes.

According to the WSJ, Rapleaf segments people into 400 categories.

Rapleaf says it doesn’t transmit personally identifiable data for online advertising, but the WSJ found that is not the case. Rapleaf shared a unique Facebook ID to at least 12 companies and a unique MySpace ID number to six companies. Any sharing was accidental, the company said.

Politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, are using Rapleaf. It has provided data to 10 political campaigns

Think about the person who is trying very hard to find that new job. They may have missed a few payments due to being out of work. This has caused their credit to be less than stellar. If they should find that perfect job, the future employer will run their credit. If the credit score comes back as low, their chances for getting the job are damaged. It is a vicious cycle.

Here’s how particular events could affect a person with a 780 credit score and someone with a 680 credit score:

The Arizona Republic reported today that The Society of Human Resources Management showed: 60% of employers conducted credit checks on job applicants in 2010. Of this figure, 47% have done so only for candidates for select jobs and 13% have done so for all job candidates.

What can you do to avoid having your credit score drop? Jahna Berry stated the following in today’s Arizona Republic: “If you’re headed for financial problems, carefully consider how missed mortgage payments, overdue bills or a bankruptcy filing could affect your credit report and your future job prospects, several employment experts said. Seek out help and look for options that will protect your credit.”

A survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that small businesses in the area are not getting the loans they are applying for this year. Businessweek.com reported, “Of the 59 percent of businesses responding to the poll that applied for credit in the first half of 2010, only half got any loan approval at all, and three quarters said their full borrowing needs were not met. (The PDF of the report is available here.)”

In the entrepreneurial courses I teach, my students discuss the issues a new start-up must face. Raising capital may be one of the most difficult hurdles right now. Part of the problem stems from not having collateral to secure the loans. If this is the case, it may be possible to obtain a loan through merchant services. Credit cards with cash advances may be an option.

Articlebase.com suggests there are other things you can do to qualify for a loan. “First you need to identify which among the many types of small business loans you need. Small business loans ranging from $5,000.00 to $35,000.00 are called micro loans. For larger needs, such as for the acquisition of land, buildings and other major fixed assets, development financing is what you should find. There are also import export loans as well as franchise financing. Do your research to find out if you are qualified for small business loans guaranteed by the U.S. Small Business Administration or SBA.”

There is some positive news. According to Finance.yahoo.com, “Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a speech on Friday that there have been some “positive signs” in the credit conditions for small businesses. “In particular, banks are no longer tightening lending standards and terms and are reportedly becoming more proactive in seeking out creditworthy borrowers,” he said.”

According to their site, “MTV Scratch taps the power of MTV to connect with millennials in new ways. Partnering with select brands to pioneer new business models, we deliver award-winning, multi-platform programming and creative, consumer insights, brand strategy, product development and design.”

I am interested in marketing and especially in the post-boomer generations. Most of my students fall into that age-group. In our book, The Young Adult’s Guide to Understanding Personalities, Toni Rothpletz and I write about the unique needs and issues facing this generation.

Because I teach a lot of marketing classes, I tend to look for differences in marketing techniques. I found the tone of MTV Scratch to be interesting. They are trying to market and appeal to the preferences of a younger generation. In their FAQ, instead of having the traditional question and answer format, their responses are a bit different than what you see on most sites.

Google’s site defines zeitgeist “as, “zeit·geist | Pronunciation: ‘tsIt-“gIst, ‘zIt | Function: noun | Etymology: German, from Zeit (time) + Geist (spirit) | Date: 1884 | Meaning: the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era. “Zeitgeist” means “the spirit of the times”, and Google reveals this spirit through the aggregation of millions of search queries we receive every day. We have several tools that give insight into global, regional, past and present search trends. These tools are available for you to play with, explore, and learn from. Use them for everything from business research to trivia answers.”

If you click here, you can reach the Google zeitgeist site. Once there, you have access to the following search site links:

I tend to set up the Google news search function in iGoogle to find out about buzz words and things I am interested in at the time. However, these sites can help you find out even more about what people really are searching for on the Internet. I like the “insight for searches” because you can create lists of specific words to find out popularity of topics in different regions. Hot trends can also be helpful to give you an idea of what is popular throughout the day.

There has been some buzz on the Internet about Zuckerberg’s psychological state for years now. The release of the movie, The Social Network, only has added to the discussion. There is one scene in which they show Zuckerberg sitting in a meeting where he is making continuous popping noises with his mouth.

Those of you who have seen Boston Legal may recall a popping sound made the character, Jerry Espenson, played by Christian Clemenson. The show’s character had asperger’s syndrome and was unable to stop making the popping sounds. The portrayal of Zuckerberg in the scene where he “pops” may be implying there is something more going on with him.

One could simply watch that scene and think he is just being rude. It also could just be something that Hollywood added to make the movie more interesting. Whatever the case, it does open up some interesting possibilities about the true personality type or psychological state of Zuckerman.

Mashable had an interest article about how to use Youtube to get a job. To learn more about how to get noticed through sites like YouTube and others, check out: How To Reinvent Your Career.

Not only is it possible to use YouTube to get a job, but it’s becoming a more popular option, especially for the current crop of would-be-employees that grew up with web video.

Some argue that video is a more personal tool for job searching, acting as a digital interview, while others see it as cold and alienating, as it lacks the face-to-face element. But YouTube isn’t just about video resumes — there are a variety of creative ways to hop online and get hired.

Even better, YouTube isn’t just for Millennials. Web video can be useful for professionals of any age looking to expand their audience or pick up new clients. With a little creativity, honesty and hard work, you can utilize YouTube to create a more effective (and more interesting) professional and digital image, rather than just falling back on the ol’ resume (digital or not).

Read on for five ways to use YouTube to get a job.

To read the rest of the article and see the videos, click here: mashable.com

With the popularity of Google, odds are you have probably tried using their search engine a time or two. However, many people are unaware of how to refine their searches using Google’s lesser-known functions.

To find information about a specific website, try inputting something like: “info:drdianehamilton.com” – be sure you type in the parentheses.

Utilize the asterisk function. For example: “Facebook * millennials” will give you results with only those words. If you just searched by “Facebook” and “millennials” you may have words between the two in your results.

Google does not recognize short words such as the, a, and, it . . . Nor is it case sensitive. However it does differentiate between singular and plural as i the case of “millennial” or “millennials”.

If you are interested in some other search-related tools offered by Google check out the following sites:

LANewsMonitor reported:Amazon.com, Facebook and others on Thursday announced that they will be investing in a new, $250 million venture-capital fund which will target at start-ups and will be designed to better connect people online. KPCB partner Bing Gordon, who is also a former executive with Electronic Arts Inc., will head the social startup fund. This was revealed at Facebook’s Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters on Thursday.